Rick Boucher, Author at Internet Innovation Alliance

Recent Contributions from Rick Boucher

Privacy Can Bridge D.C’s Partisan Gap

While congress and the White House seem to be caught in the icy grip of gridlock over most federal policy, there is a growing view that privacy legislation could break through the logjam.

February 11, 2019

With Net Neutrality Milestone Reached, What Now?

Op-eds

Congress needs to pass a statute that protects the open internet and encourages innovation and investment — and end a protracted ping-pong match between Title I and Title II status for internet regulation.

December 11, 2018

Net Neutrality Debate

IIA Co-Chairman and former Congressman Rick Boucher discusses the need for a legislative compromise on net neutrality that involves contributions of the best ideas from both parties.

November 7, 2018

5G Can Help Save Lives

Op-eds

5G’s ability to handle massive amounts of data flowing from multiple points allows healthcare professionals to monitor patients and identify those at risk sooner and with greater accuracy than ever before.

October 31, 2018

Telemedicine Bridges Time and Space to Save Lives

Op-eds

Telemedicine allows healthcare professionals to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients in remote locations using communications technology. And the advances in telemedicine will only grow as we move into a 5G world, benefitting healthcare around the globe and helping to close the urban-rural divide.

October 16, 2018

California’s Net Neutrality Adventure: Right Goal, Wrong Path

Op-eds

California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 822 that adopts a state-level net neutrality requirement for broadband providers operating in California. However well-intentioned this effort may be, it is deeply legally flawed. It also contains substantive provisions that would serve as a major barrier to broadband investment.

October 1, 2018

FCC’s New Frontier: Time to Auction 2.5 GHz Spectrum to Close Homework Gap

Op-eds

The majority of today’s teachers routinely make homework assignments with the expectation that students will go online to complete the work. But students don’t have equal access to high-speed broadband. One straightforward way increase access to high-speed broadband is a spectrum auction to repurpose a currently-underutilized spectrum band and open up more wireless capacity for everyone, including for educational use.

September 24, 2018

Congress Needs to Put the Net Neutrality Debate to Rest to Help Close the Digital Divide

Op-eds

The statutory designation of broadband as a Title I information service is one key to putting the net neutrality debate to rest, and it’s also essential to creating a regulatory climate appropriate for broadband investment in rural areas.

September 7, 2018

FCC Should Follow Signposts for Change With Mobile Broadband

Op-eds

A new survey shows just how fast the market for broadband is changing. Consumers no longer see mobile and fixed internet access alternatives as fundamentally different but use different types of broadband access in similar ways. In other words, mobile and fixed broadband are now functional substitutes.

July 31, 2018

Mississippi Has a Significant Stake in Outcome of Net Neutrality War

Op-eds

The door is open once again to large-scale broadband investment, but some in Congress are now urging a return of the heavy-handed regulatory treatment imposed on broadband in 2015. That would be a major mistake for the country at large and particularly punishing for broadband investment in our rural regions.

July 3, 2018

Net Neutrality: Congress Should Step In

Op-eds

Former Congressman Rick Boucher discusses the need for everyone in the internet system to rally around adopting in a statute the core principles of an open internet and strong, uniform privacy protections that apply equally to everyone at every point in the internet continuum.

June 1, 2018

U.S. Should Lead, Not Follow Europe, on Privacy

Op-eds

Former Congressman Rick Boucher argues that the practical effect of the privacy rules proposed by former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler would do little to protect Americans on basic privacy issues and be harmful to the advertising business model of internet edge providers.

May 7, 2018

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